Isobar’s Rob Larsen suggests that there is often a need to build CSS selectors dynamically when building applications. ”This is typically some existing pattern paired with a loop counter or something pulled from a data attribute,” he writes on his blog. His choice is to create a variable called ”selector” and ”to craft the selector Read the rest…

Google developer advocate Paul Kinlan has detailed his recent work on a lightweight sharing facility using a very simple intent share protocol. Web Intents began life in 2010. Now, Kinlan and company are looking for feedback. Basically, his intent tag is intended to allow users to more easily mix and match favorite plug-in capabilities, freeing Read the rest…

The State – Sort of – of HTML5 Audio Scott Schiller discusses the high level of hype around HTML5 and CSS3. The two specs render ”many years of feature hacks redundant by replacing them with native features,” he writes in an insightful blog. Blogging, he says: CSS3’s border-radius, box-shadow, text-shadow and gradients, and HTML5’s <canvas>, Read the rest…

IBM recently announced the open source contribution of Maqetta to the Dojo Foundation. Maqetta provides WYSIWYG authoring of HTML5 user interfaces using drag/drop assembly, and supports both desktop and mobile user interfaces. Maqetta is said to target user experience designers working in teams focused on HTML5 application development. The Maqetta application runs in the browser. Read the rest…

With Google and their apps like Search, Docs or GMail only a very small time is actually spent in the initial page load, writes Andreas Grabner in a recent blog post. Of course, much time is spent in JavaScript, XHR Calls and DOM Manipulations triggered by user actions. Grabner writes: It is very important to Read the rest…

The Eclipse Foundation now offers sign-up access to a beta version of the OrionHub service, a hosted implementation of Orion tools. Orion is an Eclipse initiative to define a browser-based platform for building and integrating web development tools. Key features of Orion include: a fast editor for JavaScript, HTML and CSS development; a client-side plugin Read the rest…

jQuery Mobile Alpha 3 increases browser support to include Firefox Mobile, Opera Mobile / Mini. Improvements reported on support for iOS, Android, BlackBerry 6, and Palm WebOS. Moreover, the Ajax navigation system has been … deeply re-factored to improve performance and handle more edge cases. This includes event handling for click, submit, and hashchange, all Read the rest…

Performance Wonk Steve Souders has announced Jdrop – described as a JSON repository in the cloud. It builds on his work with Mobile Perf javaScript meta-bookmarklets that can work as profilers for mobile devices. Bookmarklets gather data and display data. The data can be saved to Jdrop. For analysis. Souders blogs: It was pretty simple Read the rest…

It is high time developers take back HTML5 from the marketing people, says Chrisian Heilmann. “HTML5 is the evolution of our web technologies, not another flashy add-on to already badly used outdated practices,” he writes in a blog posting that includes illuminating slides. http://www.wait-till-i.com/2011/02/09/using-html5-sensibly-and-multimedia-on-the-web-speaking-at-the-london-ajax-meetup/

Mozilla Labs announced it will no longer maintain the Prism project. Attention instead will focus on the more general Chromeless project, which also is a ”task-focused layer” running on top of Mozilla’s XULRunner runtime environment. In a blog entitled “Prism is now Chromeless,” Lloyd Hilaiel wrote: “The final change we’re announcing today takes the form Read the rest…

Smart GWT 2.4 has been released and, as expected, they are jumping on the HTML5 and iOS/Touch bandwagon. The fact that the touch support doesn’t require code changes for existing apps is most welcome. Also, the mention of the upcoming Smart GWT Mobile with “pixel perfect iOS look and feel” sounds intriguing. Many have tried, Read the rest…

The Mozilla folks including Mozilla Evangelist Chris Heilmann thought it a good idea to introduce some “People of HTML5,” starting with Bruce Lawson of Opera, co-author of “Introducing HTML5” and one of the curators of HTML5 Doctor. Among the most vivid new technologies of the moment Lawson cites: …DAP (“Device APIs and Policy Working Group”). This Read the rest…

At the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Google showed Android 3.0, Honeycomb. It is the next version of the Android platform, designed for devices with larger screen sizes, such as tablets. Honeycomb is said to provide a “truly virtual and holographic user interface.”

Per James Newton, the latest Json.NET release targets .NET 4. Json.NET 4.0 comes with a Windows Phone specific dll, compiled using Windows Phone tools. A .NET 4 feature employed is the dynamic keyword, which allows variables and members to be statically typed as dynamic. Json.NET 4.0 adds support for dynamic keywords in a couple of Read the rest…